Is WWE teasing Brock Lesnar leaving for a story, or warning us that it’s happening?

Brock Lesnar rumors are swirling, both about a potential exit from WWE after WrestleMania 34 and/or for a return to UFC. So, on this week’s episode of RAW, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman claimed WWE wanted the Universal Championship off of Brock — hence the Fatal Four Way at SummerSlam featuring mountains of meat Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, and Samoa Joe — and as such, if Brock were to lose the title at the August event, he and Heyman would both be leaving the company.

Is WWE just telling a story playing off of all of the rumors? Or are they trying to warn us that Lesnar is indeed on the way out, and maybe faster than anyone expected, so he can return to UFC and resume fighting there rather than in the squared circle? The answer is likely in the middle: WWE probably doesn’t 100 percent know if Lesnar is going to leave or when he would leave, and now, that uncertainty has been baked into an ongoing story within the WWE universe.

Think of it this way: if Lesnar gives WWE more clarity in the next couple of weeks, one way or the other, it might determine if he retains at SummerSlam or not. He could retain because he’s planning on sticking around through WrestleMania 34, which sets up a major match there against one of his three opponents at SummerSlam. He could be planning on leaving to fight in UFC at some point after SummerSlam, which means WWE could have him drop the belt and leave the company, whether to return sometime after whatever fight he ends up having, or to be gone for years until Lesnar is being put into the WWE Hall of Fame. Either way, WWE’s bases are covered.

If Lesnar drops the belt to Roman Reigns, that sets Reigns up for one-on-one feuds for the Universal Championship against Strowman or Joe or someone else entirely, and also leaves the door open for John Cena vs. Reigns at WrestleMania 34. If Strowman or Joe wins, that could change the landscape of RAW’s main event scene quite a bit since they would have a popular heel champion who actually appears on the show each week. Or, Lesnar retains, sticks around through Mania, and gets additional one-on-one matches at Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, and maybe another one or two in between, with WWE continuing to keep the top title on RAW off television more often than not.

It’s impossible to know which scenario is playing out, especially if WWE itself is unsure which direction they’re going in. This plan to have Brock and Heyman threaten to leave, though, is a good use of reality and a potential reality that could be coming to Lesnar and WWE soon. SummerSlam is going to answer a question for real in its main event, and fans aren’t going to be able to wait to hear that answer.

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• For as intriguing as “Lesnar could leave” is as a story, what RAW did around that story this week didn’t work for Geno Mrosko.
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• The retro Best and Worst of RAW is up to an incredible Bret Hart promo where he explains that Pittsburgh is America’s butthole.
• Dana White says Ronda Rousey is “probably” going to retire, so maybe WWE will just end up trading out UFC stars.